A happy thing

Why, ’tis a happy thing
To be the father unto many sons.
3 Henry VI

I keep losing track of the days, so it's nice to have Facebook to remind me that today is Father's Day. So I'd better add "Call Dad" to today's to-do list!

One of the major things on my list today is to finish textual notes for 1 & 2 Henry IV for next spring's round of the Kingship Cycle. Between Hal, Falstaff, and King Henry and it being Father's Day, I'm going to have dads on my mind a lot today. And I'm sure we'll be running Hamlet lines today, so there's another one!

Fathers and sons are so prevalent in Shakespeare's plays, and to be frank, not something I've given a great deal of thought to. This is about to change, however! These relationships (especially in the history plays) are profoundly troubled. Hal struggles with living up to his father's expectations, actively spoiling the view his father sees of him. Falstaff stands in as an alternate father figure, but which father's approval does Hal actually seek? Either? Both? At the end of 2 Henry IV (V.ii), Hal speaks about how he hopes he shall behave when he becomes a father and has a son like himself and how grateful he is to have the Lord Chief Justice to aid him when he does.

Prince You are right Justice, and you weigh this well:Therefore still bear the Balance, and the Sword:And I do wish your Honors may increase,Till you do live, to see a Son of mineOffend you, and obey you, as I did.So shall I live, to speak my Father’s words:Happy am I, that have a man so bold,That dares do Justice, on my proper Son;And no less happy, having such a Son,That would deliver up his Greatness so,Into the hands of Justice. You did commit me:For which, I do commit into your hand,Th’ unstainèd Sword that you have us’d to bear:With this Remembrance; That you use the sameWith the like bold, just, and impartial spiritAs you have done ‘gainst me. There is my hand,You shall be as a Father, to my Youth:My voice shall sound, as you do prompt mine ear,And I will stoop, and humble my Intents,To your well-practis’d, wise Directions.

If you are lucky enough to have your father in your life, give him a call or a hug today and let him know you're thinking of him. I'll be doing the same. Happy Father's Day!

Happy Summer!

Well, it is very nearly official. Just a few days away!

Things are gearing up for our festival season, so I can tell summer is just around the corner. Two weeks ago, the cast gathered for their first official meeting and to read through our three mainstage plays: Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. And let me tell you, these are going to be some rocking shows this summer. It is privilege to work with actors like these -- and they are going to knock your socks off.

A few days ago, we also sent out our finalized script for The Twelve Labors of Hercules to the children's show company. Our playwright, Jessica Hackett, has done a wonderful job bringing a tone of the truly classic to storytelling for kids. I can't wait to get memorizing on my roles in this show. We continue to fill our calendar with additional tours for Hercules -- see how we're doing so far by checking our summer schedule here.

Casting is also underway for Kingship Cycle Part One, and I have Part Two beginning to roll around in my brain as well. I can't believe just how many wonderful things are on the horizon for Adirondack Shakespeare Company this year. It's kind of incredible!

Thanks for welcoming me back to the world of blogging this summer. It's nice to be back after a hiatus. I'll be keeping you posted on the goings-on at the cabin as we prepare for the season and letting you know just what's coming up next for us. I would be thrilled if you would consider sharing this blog with others -- follow me on Facebook via Networked Blogs, or add me to your Google Reader, or take it a step further and consider making a donation to support Adirondack Shakespeare Company's 2012 Summer Festival Season! We'll be launching our IndieGoGo campaign very very soon!

Kingship Part Two Casting Matrix

*UPDATE 6/16/12* - It's come to my attention what a useful tool this Matrix is for others and that all our hard work is totally up for grabs here on the interwebs. Since this Matrix represents dozens of hours of work, I am going to take the images of it out of the post. You can still see a sample of what the matrix looks like by viewing this post.


If you are interested in using it for production, you may contact me at tara@adkshakes.org. Thanks!

I'm excited to share the Part Two Casting Matrix with you. This one was kind of a beast -- more so than the Matrix for Part One. In Part Two there were more supporting roles that could have doubled. In Part One it was generally the heftier roles that went across multiple plays. And for Part Two, the individual show maps were just a bit trickier. I couldn't get everything to fit just perfectly.

I'm really pretty happy with what's here. I think the individual packages of roles are really fascinating. Some interesting connections are bound to be made when roles like Hotspur and Katherine are paired, or Richard II's murderers being played by the actors who were also his confidants. I love it!

Audition Sides for Kingship Part 1

Things are falling into place for our first round of Kingship Cycle auditions coming up on April 1. Studio space is reserved. The info sheets are typed. Over a hundred submissions from actors came in in the first 24 hours after sending the announcement. Audition appointments will be sent out soon!

In the meantime, you can check out the acting company matrix that I'll be drawing on for casting here. See how roles are pairing up across the shows. Mind you, these are not set in stone, but they're a great beginning point to see what we're thinking of right now.

And you can also download our selection of sides for the audition day here. We have selections from 1, 2, 3 Henry VI and Richard III as well as two sides from 1 Henry IV and Henry V. Here's the list to preview:

One correction: The Duchess is not included in the side from Richard III, Act IV scene iv.

All roles are open. All roles are paid.

If you would like to be considered for The Kingship Cycle, please send an email with your current headshot and resume to casting@adkshakes.org.

Kingship Cycle Auditions

Kingship Cycle Audition Announcement

Adirondack Shakespeare Company will be holding auditions for the 2012-2013 Kingship Cycle on Sunday, April 1 and Monday, May 14 at CAP21 Studios (18 W 18th Street, NYC). Please email a headshot and resume to casting@adkshakes.org if you are interested in being seen.

The Kingship Cycle is a two-part project. The first half will take place in the fall of 2012 and includes productions of 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and Richard III. We are seeking a company of 12 actors for this project. The second half will take place in the spring of 2013 and includes productions of Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V, for which we are also seeking a company of 12 actors. These auditions will consist of readings from all eight plays. Auditions held on April 1will consist mostly of readings from Part 1 of the Cycle. Auditions held on May 14 will consist of readings from Part 2 of the Cycle.

Dates for this project are tentatively set for October 18 - November 17, 2012 for Kingship Part 1 (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and Richard III) and for March 28 - April 27, 2013 for Kingship Part 2 (Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V). Rehearsals and performances will take place on both the Queens and Manhattan campuses of St. John’s University.

Please note that for roles spanning multiple plays (Richard III, Prince Hal, Margaret, for example), one actor will be cast to play the same role across each of the plays in which this character appears. The idea of these productions is to create as clear a through-line as possible for the story, the characters, and the ultimate question of this project: What makes a (good/bad) king? The culmination of this project will be my doctoral dissertation in English Literature, which will focus on the text of the plays as literature, but also on elements of theatrical performance and original practice-influenced production.

We will be casting a company of 12 actors for each Kingship Part. This means there will be a cast of 12 actors for Kingship Part 1 (1, 2, 3 Henry VI and Richard III). Actors will also be considered for Kingship Part 2 (Richard II, 1 & 2 Henry IV, and Henry V). Each contract represents a commitment for the four shows within each Kingship Part. Casting in one Part does not guarantee casting in the other.

Auditions on Sunday, April 1 and Monday, May 14 will held in groups of 8-10. Each group session will last one hour and consist entirely of cold readings from the plays. If you have not auditioned for the company in the past, we will ask you to present a prepared monologue (1-2 minutes in length, classical verse ONLY).

This project differs from past Shakespeare IN THE RAW productions in that it will include several workshop rehearsals prior to the shortened, intensive rehearsal period (which is comprised of approximately 12 hours of rehearsal per production). These workshops will incorporate movement, text analysis, and discussions of political, social, and historical context for these plays. I anticipate a series of three to five workshops (one per week) in the weeks preceding the opening dates listed above. Read-throughs will also take place several weeks in advance of the rehearsal and performance dates listed above.

Our intensive rehearsal period will consist of a speak-through of the entire text of each play; small group scene work focusing almost entirely on text; working through any music and/or violence; and a final cue-to-cue of each play. The cue-to-cue is the last portion of rehearsal, in which we work entrances, exits, music, violence, and any tricky staging. There is no run-through of the show prior to performance. I’ll say that again -- the very first time we run through the play is in the first performance.

All company members must arrive for the first rehearsal on fully memorized and able to run through all of their assigned roles off-book.  Preparation is a crucial element to this process, so please consider your ability to dedicate ample time ahead of the performance weekend when determining your availability. With only 12 hours of rehearsal for each play, there is no time to dedicate to learning your lines.

Company members must have a high degree of comfort with the mechanics and musicality of verse-speaking.  

All roles are paid. Non-Equity contracts only.

Same Name Syndrome

I'm working through editing and re-setting the scripts for the first tetralogy of The Kingship Cycle, and last night was devoted to 3 Henry VI. Luckily, this script is in really good shape. I fixed a few typos and reset the character names. King Henry VI is sometimes set as "Henry" and sometimes as "King." King Edward IV - same thing. But there's also Prince Edward, son of Henry VI, who fortunately is usually set as Prince.

Throughout these 8 history plays, the characters have good, strong English names. How are we supposed to keep them straight?

My approximate count (since I'm certain to be missing at least a few) is:

• 7 Henrys
• 6 Edwards (technically Edward III and the Black Prince of Wales are only mentioned)
• 4 Richards
• 4 Edmunds
• 2 Humphreys
• 1 George
• 8 Johns
• 3 Thomases
• By the time I got to William, I gave up.

I finally feel after having performed in 5 of these 8 plays in the past, seen films and theatrical productions, read them multiple times like I can begin to keep many of these names straight with titles. How do I make this easier on an audience member who perhaps has never seen 1 Henry IV? Or an actor who is familiar with Richard III but not 2 Henry VI? Maybe I should invest in a wall poster on the genealogy of England's Royal Houses.

King-Sized To Do List

The preparation for The Kingship Cycle is occasionally overwhelming. This is the largest project that ADK Shakes has undertaken to date, so there's a lot to keep up with. I really enjoy writing posts about what is taking place behind the scenes on all our projects, so here's a look at the many things going on right now in order to prepare for next fall and spring's two-part Kingship Cycle.

Tudor Rose Window. Source.

• Character Maps

Also known as "French Scenes," these maps track each character's trajectory throughout the course of the play. This helps me build Character Tracks to assign to each individual actor, as I can see how the roles can conceivably double up. Luckily, since we have already produced 1, 2, 3 Henry VI and Richard III, we already have maps for these shows complete. I reorganized the doubles based on the concept for this project, but I didn't have to start from scratch. Henry V is also already complete, and we just finished Richard II yesterday.
To Do: 1 & 2 Henry IV

• Casting Matrix

You can view the Casting Matrix for the first part of The Kingship Cycle and get an idea for how complex this project is! I have only just begun the Matrix for Part Two, but I won't be able to complete it without the aforementioned Character Maps. What makes this project particularly difficult to map is that I want individual actors to follow a character through multiple plays. For example, Falstaff appears in 1 & 2 Henry IV, and therefore the same actor will play Falstaff in both plays. Exciting stuff! But it can be messy when building the Matrix. I learned last weekend that it's better to start from the end and work backwards. The Richmond / Edward double in Richard III is clear from the Map, so that meant Edward and Richmond double in 3 Henry VI. OK, no problem, but where I had Edward placed in 2 Henry VI (in which he speaks only 1 line) didn't work at all. I had to unravel and re-do the Matrix three plays back. Now I know! I will start from Henry V and work backward!
To Do: R2-HV Matrix

• Scripts

When Patrick and I prepare scripts for performance, we begin with the First Folio. I love the Applause texts of the individual plays. Neil Freeman's notes are terrific. He marks alterations between the various Folio and Quarto texts and describes in detail the changes that appear in each iteration. In our scripts, we preserve First Folio capitalizations and punctuation always, and spelling sometimes. Decisions on alterations to the line are discretionary, and sometimes I will make a note in our script so an actor can see the change and make the decision for themselves. Here's a peek into how different the versions can be. When we first started producing Shakespeare IN THE RAW, though, we had not yet developed this method. So our early scripts are ... well ... kind of a hot mess. I'm currently going through and re-setting the format, fixing typographical errors, and adding footnotes. I won't lie, it's kind of tedious. And there's a giant ticking clock ... the actors are going to need these scripts just as soon as possible. The actor who will be playing Richard III will have approximately 1900 lines to learn. To put that in perspective, an uncut Hamlet speaks 1476 lines. Yeah! What?!?
To Do: Formatting and editing for 1 Henry VI. Light editing for 3 Henry VI and Richard III.
Footnotes for 1, 2, 3 Henry VI, Richard III, Henry V
Everything (!) for Richard II, 1 & 2 Henry IV

• Auditions

Right! I have to cast these shows! Because the actors playing Richard III and Henry V in particular have such a massive line load, I need to cast and get these scripts out so they have time to actually learn all these lines and prepare these intricate characters. That means auditions have to happen soon! So -- any actors reading this blog, this is for you! -- I'm planning to hold auditions for Part 1 of The Kingship Cycle on Sunday, April 1 and for Part 2 of The Kingship Cycle on Monday, May 14. You can send me your interest at casting@adkshakes.org now, but I'll also be emailing a notice to our Actor Mailing List. (If you're not on that and you want to be, email info@adkshakes.org.)
To Do: Actor Info Sheets and Sides from all eight plays.

• Calendar

We have come up with a schedule for these rehearsals and performances. It's intense, and I love it! I'm planning a series of weekly workshops leading up to our intensive Shakespeare IN THE RAW style of rehearsal and performance. These workshops will include read-throughs, movement rehearsals, discussions on the genealogy, history, and socio-political issues in the plays. The rehearsals will be set up to put up two plays over the course of a weekend (as we have done in the past with the Bookend and Justice Projects) and then perform the same two plays the following weekend. Weeks 3 and 4 will be putting up and performing (twice each) the second two plays. And Week 5 (my favorite!) will be a marathon of all four plays. This week we have a meeting to ensure that we can hopefully get the specific dates we are looking at -- keep your fingers crossed!
To Do: Reserve all dates for workshops, rehearsals, and performances.

• Research

This is just an ongoing piece of the puzzle. I am fortunate to be doing a portion of this work as my directed research for the spring semester. It's fascinating reading, and it's great exercise for my brain. I can't wait to dig into more reading on the law and history of the period. I'm swimming around in the first tetralogy of plays right now and also looking forward to diving into the second tetralogy.

Even though this To Do List is big and long and complicated, it's a wonderful feeling to realize that there's nothing else I'd rather be doing.

Reading List

Since heading back to school last year, I've noticed that I have developed a pretty consistent trend over the course of the semester. I start out reading like crazy (which never really lets up), and perhaps I also have an overarching idea that I'm interested in pursuing throughout the class (which sometimes changes drastically). Around midterms (usually just after I've written my midterm paper), I start researching with my final paper in mind. I've read around enough to have a good (if sometimes basic) idea of what's out there, or at least where I should start looking. And I've refined my "overarching idea" enough to make a final paper out of it.

That's about where I am right now in my Emergence of Modernism class and in my directed research. I spent most of Friday trolling library online catalogs and databases. I've got a list of books to pick up and a pile of articles in my downloads folder to sift through - exciting! I'm working towards writing on the legal notion of equity and its historical place as the purview of the monarch. It's the perfect marriage between The Justice Project and the beginnings of The Kingship Cycle. I still have to do the legal part of the research, so I'm hoping for some help researching on West Law and Lexis Nexis. Here are a few of the titles on my reading list:

Law and Empire in English Renaissance Literature by Brian C. Lockey

Rhetoric and Law in Early Modern Europe by Victoria Kahn

The Poetics of English Nationhood, 1590-1612 by Claire McEachern

Shakespeare and the Legal Imagination by Ian Ward

Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion in Shakespeare's England by Rebecca Lemon

Metadrama in Shakespeare's Henriad by James Calderwood

Forms of Nationhood by Richard Helgerson

I'd better put some tea on and get reading!

Kingship Acting Company Matrix

*UPDATE 4/23/12* - It's come to my attention what a useful tool this Matrix is for others and that all our hard work is totally up for grabs here on the interwebs. Since this Matrix represents dozens of hours of work, I am going to take the images of it out of the post. If you are interested in using it for production, you may contact me at tara@adkshakes.org. Thanks!

Whenever it is time to look forward to the next batch of productions, I get really excited to think about doubles (or sometimes more accurately, triples, quadruples, and so forth -- what's nine?). It's fascinating to consider roles that seem to fit naturally together, though much more often I like to disrupt those kinds of doubles. For me, they seem too easy and therefore less challenging and interesting -- for both the actor and the audience member.

Casting for the Kingship Cycle are (I'm already certain) the most difficult maps I will ever put together. So much so that I decided I can't call it a map. Too simplistic. So it's a matrix instead. This bit of stuff took eleven or twelve hours to put together, and that was only so "short" because Patrick and I have already laboriously made out the character maps (or French scenes as they are sometimes called) for each of the four plays in Part 1 of the Kingship Cycle.


I love putting together different versions of the character tracks for each play, experimenting with different doubles. I'm limited by the number of actors and, of course, by who's on stage when. The Kingship Matrix quickly became even more insane than usual, because I really want to have the same actors continuing through each character's entire journey across the plays. Margaret is the only character to appear in all four plays -- what a survivor. Hard-favored Richard appears for the first time at the very end of 2 Henry VI, and we follow his play for and rise to power through 3 Henry VI and Richard III. What a fascinating journey for the actor and the lucky audience members who get to see these shows!

In some ways I suppose I'm a glutton for punishment. As much time as it takes to get this matrix "just so," when I walk out of the audition room from hours of callbacks, I will come right back to this matrix and shift things around. So trust me that this matrix is not going to be exactly what you read in the program next fall. But maybe you will start getting as excited about some of these pairings as I am!

Images removed by author. Below is a sample from the Matrix.